By William Wei
Professor of History, University of Colorado at Boulder

From todays perspective, it is difficult to believe that once upon a time
in America, Chinese were considered heathens and subjected to widespread
persecution and violence. The earlier hostile attitude toward Chinese is a far
cry from the contemporary esteem for them as a "model minority" to be
emulated by others. But as the pages of Harpers Weekly document, in
the 19th century, many people considered the Chinese to be
unassimilable and therefore unacceptablehence, their eventual exclusion from
America in 1882.

In the mid-19th century, Chinese came to "Gold
Mountain," as they called America, to join the "Gold Rush" that
began at Sutters Mill, Sacramento, California. As the lure of gold
diminished, they came simply to work. Initially welcomed, they became a
significant part of the labor force that laid the economic foundation of the
American West. Chinese could be found throughout the region, laboring in
agriculture, mining, industry, and wherever workers were needed. They are best
known for their contribution to the construction of the Transcontinental
Railroad, the completion of which united the country economically and
culturally.

In spite of their indispensable role in the development of the American West,
the Chinese suffered severe exploitation. They were discriminated against in
terms of pay and forced to work under abysmal conditions. White workers viewed
them as economic competitors and racial inferiors, thereby stimulating the
passage of discriminatory laws and the commission of widespread acts of violence
against the Chinese. According to John Higham:

No variety of anti-European sentiment has
ever approached the violent extremes to which anti-Chinese agitation went in
the 1870s and 1880s. Lynching, boycotts, and mass expulsions harassed the
Chinese. *

Under the racist slogan, "Chinese must go!" an anti-Chinese
movement emerged that worked assiduously to deprive the Chinese of a means of
making a living in the general economy. The movements goal was to drive them
out of the country. This hostility hindered efforts by the Chinese to become
American. It forced them to flee to the Chinatowns on the coasts, where they
found safety and support. In these ghettos, they managed to eke out a meager
existence, but were isolated from the rest of the population, making it
difficult if not impossible to assimilate into mainstream society. To add insult
to injury, Chinese were criticized for their alleged unassimilability.

Finally, Chinese workers were prevented from immigrating to America by the
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Its passage was a watershed event in American
history. Besides identifying for the first time a specific group of people by
name as undesirable for immigration to the United States, the act also marked a
fateful departure from the traditional American policy of unrestricted
immigration.

After China became an ally during World War II, the exclusion laws proved to
be an embarrassment and were finally repealed by the Magnuson Act in 1943. This
bill made it possible for Chinese to become naturalized citizens and gave them an annual
quota of 105 immigrants. While the bill ended an injustice that had been committed
sixty-one years earlier, the damage to the Chinese community had already been done. Between the 1890s and
1920s, the Chinese population in America declined. But the worst effect was to
undermine the one thing that was most precious to the Chinese, their families.
Chinese men were forced to live lonely bachelor lives in the almost all-male
society that was Chinatown. Meanwhile, wives and children were forced to remain
in China, supported by remittances from the United States and rarely seeing
their husbands and fathers. Such separations made it difficult to maintain
strong family ties.

As the annual quota of 105 immigrants indicates, Americas immigration
policy was restrictive and particularly discriminatory against Chinese and other
Asians. Equality in immigration only came with the enactment of the Immigration
Act of 1965, which repealed the iniquitous national origins quota system that
had been established earlier. Since the 1960s, Chinese have immigrated to the
United States in significant numbers, taking particular advantage of the
immigration policys emphasis on family reunification. At the end of the 20th
century, there are an estimated 2.3 million Chinese-Americans.

Today, Chinese-Americans are doing relatively well. They are generally seen
as hard-working professionals or small business people, with stable families.
Indeed, the most recent census data indicates that they have median household
incomes and educational levels higher than their White counterparts. While
problems of discrimination still exist, they are mild compared to those reported
in Harpers Weekly over a century ago.

Harpers Weekly and the Chinese

As one would expect from a publication of such stature, Harpers Weekly
reported on the Chinese in America. Besides carrying articles on Sino-American
relations and some of the more exotic features of Chinese culture, Harpers
Weekly provided lengthy essays on aspects of the Chinese that were of interest
to the public, such as opium consumption and Chinese coolies. These writings and
the detailed illustrations that accompanied them provide important information
about the daily lives of the Chinese. As the "Chinese Question"
evolved from a regional to a national issue, Harpers Weekly increased
its coverage of the Chinese community. It looked at events such as the signing
of the Burlingame Treaty in 1868, between China and the United States, in terms
of its implications for the Chinese in America.

Even more significant than the articles were the editorials in which the
editors of HarpersWeekly commented extensively on the Chinese.
In keeping with the sentiment of the times, the editorials perceived the Chinese
as the most alien of the immigrants to come to American shores. As such, some of
the editors were ambivalent about the assimilability of the Chinese. However,
the editors staunchly defended the right of Chinese to be here and to be treated
with dignity, basing their arguments on American ideals and a shared humanity.
They implicitly challenged the popular 19th-century definition of
"the American" as a White person and considered the Chinese to be
citizen material. Furthermore, the editors roundly condemned the acts of
violence that were perpetrated against the Chinese, including the massacre at
Rock Springs, Wyoming, in 1885.

In Harpers Weekly, the efforts of the editors were complemented by
the work of Thomas Nast, the most accomplished political cartoonist of his age.
He drew over fifty cartoons featuring the Chinese, depicting their trials and
tribulations, criticizing their unfair treatment and relating it to the plight
of other people of color, such as Blacks and Native Americans. Nasts work
contrasts with that of Frank Bellew, a fellow Harpers Weekly
cartoonist, who caricatured the Chinese and ridiculed their speech.

The significance of Nasts work is indicated by the continued use of his
drawings by contemporary scholars. For example, his Harpers Weekly
depiction of the Rock Springs Massacre was used on the dust jacket of Alexander
Saxtons classic study, The IndispensableEnemy: Labor and the
Anti-Chinese Movement in California (University of California Press, 1971),
and his political cartoons were featured in the documentary,
"Misunderstanding China," that was produced on the eve of President
Richard M. Nixons historic trip to China in 1972.

In sum, Harpers Weekly is an important primary source about Chinese
living in America during the 19th- century, providing information
about them and their communities, and commenting on the controversies that
surrounded them. Much to their credit, the editors exercised their moral
responsibility and decried the injustices visited upon the Chinese during their
most difficult period in America.